Chesco awards $42M emergency radio system contract

An EF Johnson radio, which is the current system that Chester County operates on sits on a desk in the dispatch center as Ed Atkins, Director of Chester County’s Department of Emergency Services (left) talks with a dispatcher. Chester County took a step forward in replacing the Emergency Services Radio System, Thursday. Photo by Tom Kelly IV

WEST CHESTER — Among the 38 contracts listed for approval on the Chester County commissioners’ agenda Thursday was one for $4,000 for family development training, another for $50,000 for street paving in Coatesville, and one for a tidy $42,103,283 for a new digital emergency radio system.

But according to the commissioners and a memo from the county’s legal counsel, that multi-million dollar figure would have been significantly higher were it not for aggressive negotiations with the ultimate contract winner, Harris Communications, and other bidders on the project.

“As a result of simultaneous negotiations, the county … saved approximately $10.5 million in connection with the voice radio project,” wrote attorney Ronald Williams of the firm of Fox Rothschild, retained to help the county negotiate and write the contract for the new system. In addition, Williams said, the negotiations allowed the county to get a radio system with a broader scope of services than what had initially been proposed.

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The commissioners, in unanimously approving and signing the Manhattan phone book-sized contract on Thursday, praised not only their legal counsel but all those who participated in the radio system planning and negotiating process. It will bring a much improved, modern radio system to all first responders in the county, and one that takes into account the specific needs of police, fire, ambulance, and fire police services, they said.

“All in all, this is something that we should all be proud of,” said commissioners’ Chairman Ryan Costello in remarks after the contract was approved.

“This was a project long in the making, and I think it was wise for us to take our time to get where we are,” added Vice Chairwoman Kathi Cozzone.

”This is the largest and most important project we three commissioners will undertake in our years in office,” said Commissioner Terence Farrell. “The safety of our citizens is our number one priority, and without this new radio system we would not be true to that strategic goal.”

The contract calls for a new radio system at the county’s Department of Emergency Services 911 operations center in West Goshen, as well as the individual radio units and computers that police, fire, and ambulance services throughout the county use daily. The current analog system, installed about 20 years ago, has been the source of complaints about “dead zones” in urban areas of the county almost since it first went on line.

The contract with Harris, an internationally known communications company headquartered in Florida, calls for $27 million in capital costs for design and installation of the new system, and an associated $15 million in maintenance costs for eight years from Metropolitan Communications of Exton.

In his memo to the commissioners, attorney Williams said the initial proposal from Harris was for $31.5 million in design and installation costs, and $21 million for maintenance from Metropolitan. Because the county engaged in face-to-face contract negotiations with Harris, Metropolitan and two other bidders, it was able to push the price down.

The scope of the system was also upgraded during the negotiations, allowing the county to install a more advanced Phase II digital system, add a microwave connection in South Coatesville, and add GPS speaker microphones for individual service units, instead of regular speaker microphones, among other enhancements.

Now that the contract has been approved and signed, DES Director Ed Atkins said his staff will begin getting the installation process started. He, DES staff, Harris personnel and members of the emergency service task force that participated in the design of the new system will meet Feb. 26.

Costello said that the entire process of getting the system installed could take up to three years. Emergency services, after all, will not be able to shut down the old system and put a new one in its place; the current system must run alongside the new system as it comes on line so as not to disrupt emergency calls.

The new emergency radio system is a P25 Phase II design that avoids the costs associated with a federally mandated transition from Phase I to Phase II for the 700 Megahertz (MHz) band in 2017. The system design includes remote transmitter/receiver sites configured in two fully-linked cells, modifications to the microwave transport system that connects the remote sites to the 911 center, replacement 911 consoles, and field equipment for the emergency responders, including 1,221 mobile radios, 2,750 hand-held radios, and 132 control stations for emergency responder station applications.

One emergency official called the new radio system “a gigantic project, probably the largest ‘non-bricks and mortar’ project in the county in 40 years.”